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Yes there was a Q&A after the reading. A lot of the questions focused on the HBO show and wasn't anything new for us...i.e. what book does it cover, how many episodes would it be, were the kids aged up, etc. GRMM did a quick summary of what would be included in the episode he was writing. I took notes but don't have them with me at the moment.

I failed to learn the names of anyone we hung out with from Avatar...*utterly fails and is horrible with names* No one was Irish, however. One of the guys does the drawings for Alan Moore's stuff for Avatar. Trebla and Luga might be better at reporting back on this...or I'll figure out who they are over the course of rest of the weekend...

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If somebody still has the chance to talk to GRRM, please ask if Ser John the Fiddler and Lord Alyn Cockshaw from 'The Mystery Knight' are supposed to be gay (and if Ser John tends to make advances toward other men when being drunk) ;-).

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Hey I was just wondering what the size of the Sunday dinner party was and if there was room for one more maybe? I've got an exam on Monday that needs studying for, but I'm hoping that if I'm productive enough before 8, that I'd be able to make it. I would be able to send a for sure yes or no by Sunday afternoon.

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Yes there was a Q&A after the reading. A lot of the questions focused on the HBO show and wasn't anything new for us...i.e. what book does it cover, how many episodes would it be, were the kids aged up, etc. GRMM did a quick summary of what would be included in the episode he was writing. I took notes but don't have them with me at the moment.

Ooh, this could be very interesting :)

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Yes, he is. Its the reason he is drawing the second Wormwood series. Moore really REALLY REALLY works his artists. I believe that he asked Talbot, on Yuggoth, to draw a man (that we only see his back view)....smiling.

Is anyone going to be attending the GRRM Spotlight panel on Sunday at 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM in room E353? If so it'd be great if someone could either report back to us on what happened during the panel oooorrr what I am really hoping for is that someone will live blog the panel. Any takers?

Daniel Abraham did a great job on the first issue of Fevre Dream. I'm really digging the comic; I have never read the original story.

As far as artists that have illustrated Alan Moore's Avatar stuff, heres the list (I'm doing this from memory, so if I spell someones name wrong dont kill me):

Juan Jose Ryp (Yuggoth, Another Suburban Romance, Magic Words)

Mike Wolfer (Yuggoth)

Brian Talbot (Yuggoth)

Jacen Burrows (Yuggoth, Courtyard, Writing for Comics)

Oscar Zarate (Yuggoth, Small Killing)

Val Semeks (Yuggoth)

Hunt Emerson (Yuggoth)

Rob Liefeld (Glory)

Lorenzo Lorent (Hypothetical Lizard)

Sebastian Fumara (Hypothetical Lizard)

Felipe Masafara (Light of thy Countenance)

Max Fiumara (Nightjar)

Many of those listed above are European artists and Liefeld, if there, would have been at the Image booth. The only Ones that I really see being at the Avatar booth are Juan Jose Ryp, Mike Wolfer, and Jacen Burrows.

All three are great artists (though Wolfer also does scripts for Ellis on Wolfskin and Gravel); however, Ryp is the runaway best. If it was Ryp that you talked to, a signed sketch from him would go for a pretty penny.

Garth Ennis is, no doubt, at the convention and I believe that he will be making an appearance at the Avatar booth (if maybe a signing), but is way too big of a writer to only be kept there. Most likely he will have a heavy presence at the Dynamite booth (considering that The Boys and Battlefields are Dynamite titles). Ennis just finished Crossed and Lapham is taking over the second series (family values), so Ennis only has Chronicles of Wormwood currently with Avatar (though the trade for crossed just came out so he will be trying to "pimp" that).

It could have also been Antony Johnston who you were talking to. He was the adaptation writer for all these. He's British so he would have had an accent and, don't quote me, but I believe he is bald. He also writes Wasteland for Oni, which is a really great series. He did Queen and Country as well as some other Oni related titles and some horror stuff for Image Comics. Lastly, hes recently been co-writing Daredevil with Andy Diggle (who is also British). I also know for a fact that he went to C2E2...wow I really channeled my inner nerd here.

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Avatar just announced that Ennis and Burrows will be doing a new Crossed series, following the announcement that Crossed has had its film rights optioned and Ennis is taking first crack at the script.

I prefer Burrows to Ryp, art-wise. Ryp is insanely detailed, but it gets very baroque and over done for my tastes. Burrows is more pared-down and focused.

Where did you read that about them doing a new Crossed series? Its not up on CBR, Newsarama, nor Bleeding Cool. Are you sure your not getting this confused with the already announced Crossed: Family Values by David Lapham? Also, Ennis is just writing the first draft of the film. Its going to be redone a million times by a bazillion other screenwriters.

Lastly, as per the artist: yeaaaaa well my favorite comic book artist is Geof Darrow. :mellow:

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Okay I can now confirm he was one of the people there last night. He actually hasn't met Moore yet. They tried to at one con but the timing didn't work out.

It's the head of Avatar that has met Moore. He got to go visit Moore in his hometown and Moore was carrying a snake headed cane and had some claw like thing on his other hand and arranged his arrival so the sun was shining behind him as he came into the room so he was silhouetted against the sun and loomed. When he was asked about the claw (there was a name for it but I'm not in the know about it) the response was it something like it was used to take out annoying editors. They then went to the pub in town which apparently has a ginormous mural of Moore's head on the ceiling.

Is anyone going to be attending the GRRM Spotlight panel on Sunday at 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM in room E353? If so it'd be great if someone could either report back to us on what happened during the panel oooorrr what I am really hoping for is that someone will live blog the panel. Any takers?

Yes there should be the three of us there tomorrow morning. We will all take notes and report back.

Okay as for the Q&A last night...t wasn't a very long Q&A as we had an hour of Max Brooks talking first (btw he was really good and very funny...not a surprise to find out he was a SNL writer) followed by a lot of questions for him. Then GRRM did his reading which took up a lot of his hour. So there was maybe 10 minutes of questions.

The first few people to ask questions knew nothing about the tv show so the first person wanted to know which books the series was covering. The next person wanted to know how many episodes there would be. Someone else asked about the episode GRRM was writing. As we know it's episode 8 and...I'm not sure if what episodes cover is considered a spoiler or not so just in case...

He said the part he was covering was towards the end of the book. That it takes place immediately following the death of Robert so it includes the coup, Arya's escape and some bits on the Wall.

Someone else asked about the age of the actors as compared to the characters if anyone had to be aged up. GRRM talked a bit about how well people age these days and how much better looking everyone is so they went with older actors to play the adult characters (generally 10 years older). With regards to the children's ages, he talked about how he mistakingly didn't age the children quickly enough in the first book...how the first chapter should have taken place 6 months before the second...so the children were made older for the tv series. He mentioned the obvious necessity for this with Dany and what she goes through and needing an older actress because you couldn't go around trying to explain to the tv audience - but it was okay for 13 year olds to get married back in the old days.

Then someone asked which historical figures influenced some of his characters. GRRM mentioned Tyrion's influences being Richard III and himself...except he is taller. Also Edward IV and Henry VIII inspired Robert.

Then someone asked who his favorite character is. GRRM talked about how it was hard to choose between children but that Tyrion was probably his favorite. He mentioned that Tyrion is going through a lot of dark stuff in the current book.

There weren't really any questions about his writing now. He did make reference to "the novel in endless progress" but that was the extent of it.

Oh and there were another two questions but they were not ASOIAF related and Trebla can cover those.

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Then someone asked which historical figures influenced some of his characters. GRRM mentioned Tyrion's influences being Richard III and himself...except he is taller. Also Edward IV and Henry VIII inspired Robert.

This is fun, as I'm just getting to the end of The Sunne In Spleandor.

See you all for dinner tonight.

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If you folks get to ask some questions at dinner, ask him what roles he's seeing casting tapes for (he mentioned getting more tapes on his blog). Throw out a casual "Daenerys?" and watch his reaction like a hawk! ;)

Also whether the next Dunk and Egg story will feature them at Winterfell. And, "The Mystery Knight" spoiler:

What reasons did Bittersteel have for not supporting Daemon II? While there's several perfectly plausible answers -- some of which can fit together -- it'd be interesting to have it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

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GRMM did a quick summary of what would be included in the episode he was writing.

That was MY question... and one I was happy to hear about. At the table I got a chance to ask George if he knows what the ending to the story is? He was emphatic that he knows exactly what is going to happen. I followed up by asking him if he would ever consider changing some of the upcoming twists in the story yet to be revelaed simply because us "online sleuths" figured it out... he said he definitely would NOT. I am a firm believer in the R+L=J conspiracy theory and I shudder to think that that great potential plot twist could get undone almost to spite attentive readers. I always wondered if GRRM would do that (I know some authors who have) but he assured me that's not the case. He also said he avoids the message boards because he doesn't want to know what we've figured out and what we haven't. I assured him that there were ome clever people out here but he retorted that he doesn't want to get influenced or affected by us.

Good to know that whatever story he had in mind to tell will get told as intended.

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At the table I got a chance to ask George if he knows what the ending to the story is? He was emphatic that he knows exactly what is going to happen. I followed up by asking him if he would ever consider changing some of the upcoming twists in the story yet to be revelaed simply because us "online sleuths" figured it out... he said he definitely would NOT. I am a firm believer in the R+L=J conspiracy theory and I shudder to think that that great potential plot twist could get undone almost to spite attentive readers. I always wondered if GRRM would do that (I know some authors who have) but he assured me that's not the case. He also said he avoids the message boards because he doesn't want to know what we've figured out and what we haven't. I assured him that there were ome clever people out here but he retorted that he doesn't want to get influenced or affected by us.

Good to know that whatever story he had in mind to tell will get told as intended.

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Hey I was just wondering what the size of the Sunday dinner party was and if there was room for one more maybe? I've got an exam on Monday that needs studying for, but I'm hoping that if I'm productive enough before 8, that I'd be able to make it. I would be able to send a for sure yes or no by Sunday afternoon.

sorry, we already confirmed our number with the restaurant. :(

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Couple of comic book tidbits:

The Mystery Knight is certainly an option for comic book release. The Dabel brothers/Marvel divorce clouds publication rights but it would be doable. However, contractually it cannot be done until 2 years after the novella publication.

GRRM is being courted by a few comic book publishers on releasing ASoIaF as a comic. Who and when? No word on that.